The close season can often prove to be as much of a roller-coaster ride as the weekly fixtures that precede it.
It’s the three months where owners, managers, players, and fans can reflect on the previous 38 matches or so, analyse the results, and set in place plans for the coming campaign.
There has already been plenty of debate, turmoil, and decisions made at West Ham in the first fortnight to suggest busyness behind the scenes.
But what will have come of the latest round of analysis and reflection, and what will the club be regretting most from the past season?
Striker issue:
Not addressing the striker problem was the biggest regret for many. Everyone recognised in the summer we could come up short in that area, and still we failed to find a suitable addition to the squad.
Not signing Carlton Cole from the start as back-up was short sighted. And in some respects, putting all our funds into Andy Carroll could also be seen as regrettable, especially given the reports around our interest in Wilfred Bony.
Ravel Morrison
The media coverage around Ravel Morrison swung from being negative about his attitude, to glowing about his performances, before petering out to the odd reference.
It was a shame, despite his early season form, that he never pushed really Kevin Nolan for a starting spot, and it was a greater shame to see him sent out on loan.
Surely the club will regret wasting such a promising talent if he is sold on this summer.
Youth involvement
The board have already pointed to the fact it wants to see greater development again in the club’s youth system.
Last season was disappointing for the lack of youth coming through to the first team.
The line-up against Nottingham Forest arguably didn’t feature some of our best talent (Chambers, Lee), and although none of those who played particularly shone, they were seeming kept well away from the first team thereafter.
Cup misery
On that note, the general cup misery last season is cause for regret. Looking at the run, had we been able to perform against Forest in the third round, the draw would not have pitted us against a Premier League team until Hull in the semis.
And despite making the semi-final of the Capital One Cup (on paper, a season high), the way we were humiliated over two legs by Manchester City leaves a very bitter taste.
General results
In the league, there were far more disappointments than satisfactions.
The biggest regret must have been the failure to beat teams around us. Losing to Palace twice is a ridiculous statistic. No disrespect to Palace, but they should not be doing the double over us!
A dour draw away at Southampton and the defeat to Everton at home in September were both games we should have been won.
Loan signings
None of the load signings brought in really made much of an impact.
The four of Roger Johnson, Marco Borriello, Antonio Nocerino, and Pablo Armero had varying amounts of game time, without ever grabbing the opportunity.
For Borriello to pick up and injury, and Nocerino to not get more time on the pitch, are probably the biggest regrets.
How negative the fans were towards Sam Allardyce and the players
Whatever your thoughts on the management or the style of play, it is always regretful to see fans turn on the team, especially when it’s winning.
Losing some of the atmosphere and positive passion at the Boleyn, just two seasons out from moving, is a sad reflection of the feeling around the club.
What do bosses think, that everything was going to alright at the beginning of the season!!!!!
That was and is naïve and immature of them to think that.
AC shouldn’t have been signed, everybody knew he was injured. That was money wasted, could bought 3 players for the money spent on AC, and they would have played from day 1.
That would have prevented the crap season we have just had!!
BFS refuses to blood the youngsters, in fact as we have just he lets them go at the earliest chance. To make it worse, he seems to want the ex- Bolton players and the home players
are farmed out to the clubs who aren’t in the Premiership…….!
So that leads me on to the Academy, why do we have it? The youngsters have nothing to
play for, because he will not play them!!!!
The loan players were a of time, because they were NEVER given a chance. This means they
were a waste time actually signing for us.
The above reasons are why l will not be renewing my season ticket. I will find some thing else to do on sat/sun/mon, like wash my hair or watch paint dry, watch grass grow etc.
Maybe we as fans deserved better from the club.
and FS his game plans were monotonous.
We got the impression that the board didn’t rate the fan base
or even in some cases respect us
& respect is a two way street.
Survival we managed but not with any style
and the fact is that a team that was quite reasonable when complete
was woeful where inadequately covered.
It seems that the signing of young exciting players is hitting the rails already, still early days but concerned we are being linked with old end of career pro’s again, [seems a Leopard cannot change its spots after all].
A previous article read – “Have we made the right decision in not sacking Sam” I am not sure, but the following is a list of this season’s Premier League clubs & how many of each club’s squad members are in the final 23 man squads for their respective countries at Brazil 2014;
Manchester United = 14 players, Chelsea = 14 players, Arsenal = 11 players, Manchester City = 10 players, Liverpool = 8 players, Tottenham = 7 players, Newcastle = 6 players, Southampton = 6 players, Everton = 5 players, Stoke = 4 players, Fulham = 4 players, Swansea = 3 players, Norwich = 2 players, Aston Villa = 2 players, Cardiff = 2 players, Hull City = 2 players, Sunderland = 2 players, West Bromwich Albion = 2 players, Crystal Palace = 1 player, West Ham United = 0 players.
You’ll notice West Ham come bottom with no international players at all in it’s squad.
We could have had Pablo Armero WHO IS INCLUDED IN COLUMBIA’S 23 squad. Columbia are currently FIFA ranked 5th & Pablo is at the heart of their defense. Pablo has been pleading with Sam, trying to sign for us, and yet Sam has not signed this brilliant international defender. Pablo cannot be blamed for that penalty that allowed Crystal Palace to win at Upton Park, a penalty like that could have happened to any one of our squad. He made a simple mistake that was all, in fact I have been really impressed with Pablo for what he has contributed until Sam dropped him for the last couple of games of the season. Well he can’t be too bad if he’s been picked to play for the 5th ranked country in the world. Falcao can’t play for Columbia through injury but Pablo can.
Sam it is an absolute joke that you are the only Premier League manager who could not sign even 1 Brazil 2014 world cup class player. Not 1. How on earth we managed to stay up I’ll never know, but what is for sure, is that you cannot seem to be able to attract world class players to come to West Ham, sure we are signing Mauro Zarate from Argentina, but I do not see his name in the Argentine squad. It is stated the Mauro was top scorer in Argentina last season with 20 goals in 35 matches in all competitions, sounds good, but most of Argentina’s international squad do not play their club football in Argentina, but we’ll see how he goes eh & good luck to him. Sam you are a very very lucky man indeed, 1) to have escaped relegation & 2) to have escaped the sack. It is obvious that you cannot be trusted to include a credible attack in your 1st team squads, so the owners have insisted on signing an attacking coach to work alongside you and force you to include an attcak in your line ups. Congratulations owners & good luck in getting what all of the other 19 Premier League clubs have, i.e. International representative players in our 1st team squad. I cannot ever remember West Ham Utd FC never having at least 1 international player on it’s books. I think Pablo deserves to be the 1st on our books after making it with Columbia. Come on West ham, get it right & COYI!
Lets hope that Teddy Sheringham helps buck Sam’s ideas up
Judging by our transfer efforts so far Teddy has a chance of playing! There is an air of here we go again to me. Linked with everyone but nothing concrete, drifting along until time runs out and then saying that we just couldnt get the deal done. Another season but same shit me feels.